AEO · AI visibility monitoring

See exactly which AI engines name you, and which ones cite you.

Surgbly checks a controlled set of prompts across validated answer providers, starting with ChatGPT and Perplexity, and separates a brand mention from an actual citation to your site — with the exact URL cited.

Every observation stores the provider, prompt version, locale, and run time behind it — not just a pass/fail score.

Ranking in Google doesn't mean showing up in an AI answer.

A brand can rank on page one and still be invisible where a growing share of buyers now start: an AI answer. Most tools only show whether the brand appeared, not whether it was mentioned, cited, or ranked below a competitor.

Mention isn’t citation

An AI answer can name a brand without linking to its site — a real distinction most tools blur together.

Wrong URL cited

An engine can cite the domain but link an outdated or unrelated page instead of the one that should rank.

One-time snapshots

A single manual check misses the run-to-run variance every AI answer engine actually has.

Competitors, unmeasured

Without competitor tracking, there’s no way to know if a gap is the brand’s or the whole category’s.

How this feature works

From a daily prompt run to a citation you can verify.

01

Run the tracked prompt set daily

A defined set of prompts, each with an immutable version, run daily across every supported provider. Nothing about the wording changes silently between runs.

Each prompt repeats 3 times per run, so run-to-run variance shows up instead of getting hidden.

Prompts tracked40
Providers5

40 prompts · 5 providers

Daily runCompleted
Prompts tracked40
Providers5
Repetitions per prompt3
Region coverageUS, UK, DE
Last run6:00 AM
Capture success rate100%
02

Capture the raw answer

Full answer text, cited domains, exact citation URLs, and answer position are captured where provider access allows it. That evidence is stored before anything gets scored or summarized.

The raw response and the normalized score are stored separately, so every number stays traceable to real evidence.

Domain citationYes
Answer position2nd of 4

Evidence captured

best ai visibility monitoring tool · ChatGPTCited
Brand mentionYes
Domain citationYes
Citation URL/product/ai-visibility-monitoring
Answer position2nd of 4 sources
Response length~180 words
Raw response stored
03

Separate mention from citation

Every result is classified as brand mention, domain citation, or neither — never blended into one visibility number. A prompt can name the brand and still fail to link to it.

Mention and citation are stored as separate fields, by design — they call for different fixes.

ChatGPTCited
PerplexityMentioned

1 of 2 cited

Provider breakdownThis prompt
ChatGPTCited
PerplexityMentioned
Citation rate50%
04

Track competitors on the same prompts

Competitor mentions, citations, and repeated citation URLs are tracked on the same prompt set for direct comparison. The comparison stays honest — same question, same day, same providers.

Same prompts, same run — so a gap reads as your brand’s or the whole category’s, not a guess.

Your brand2 of 5
Competitor A4 of 5

Competitor A: 4 of 5

Share of voicePrompt group
Your brand2 of 5 providers
Competitor A4 of 5 providers
Competitor B1 of 5 providers
Gap persisting3 weeks
  • Competitor A cited on Perplexity where you are absent.
05

Route the gap

A missing citation becomes an answer-gap diagnosis, which routes to a content brief or an external-source recommendation. The finding carries its own confidence label, not just a lower score.

Classified by cause — access, understanding, relevance, authority, freshness, or measurement — before it reaches you.

Likely causeWeak third-party proof
ConfidenceHigh

Sent to gap analysis

Perplexity · mentioned onlyRouted
Likely causeWeak third-party proof
ConfidenceHigh
Contributing factorNo case studies published
Similar gaps2 more prompts
See AI answer gap analysis
Daily runCompleted
Prompts tracked40
Providers5
Repetitions per prompt3
Region coverageUS, UK, DE
Last run6:00 AM
Capture success rate100%

Explore it yourself

Explore the AI visibility dashboard.

Provider coverage
ChatGPTCited
PerplexityMentioned
Citation rate50%

Key capabilities

Everything an AI visibility number needs to be trustworthy.

Coverage

  • Validated provider coverage with ChatGPT and Perplexity first
  • Controlled runs with immutable prompt versions and cost accounting
  • Locale, region, device, model, and capture-fidelity metadata

Evidence

  • Brand mention vs. domain citation vs. citation URL
  • Answer position or prominence where measurable
  • Repeated-run variance, not a single snapshot

Competitors

  • Competitor mention and citation tracking on the same prompts
  • Share-of-voice by prompt group
  • Repeated citation winners surfaced by name

Freshness & priority

  • Freshness and sample-size labels beside every observation
  • Provider-aware priority policies when validated behavior differs
  • Variance and confidence descriptors instead of false probability claims

Business outcomes

What changes once mention and citation are separate numbers.

Know the real gap

Stop treating "mentioned" and "cited" as the same outcome — they call for different fixes.

See the exact URL cited

Know which page an AI engine actually links to, not just that the domain came up.

Competitor gaps, quantified

See whether a missing citation is brand-specific or true across the whole category.

A gap becomes a routed action

Every weak result feeds directly into gap analysis instead of sitting in a dashboard.

Why Surgbly does it better

A routed gap instead of a monthly screenshot.

Traditional

  1. 1Manually ask ChatGPT once a month.
  2. 2Mention and citation get treated as the same thing.
  3. 3No competitor comparison on the same prompts.
  4. 4A missing result has no next step.

Surgbly

  1. 1Daily runs across five AI engines with immutable prompts.
  2. 2Mention, citation, and citation URL tracked separately.
  3. 3Competitors tracked on the same prompt set.
  4. 4A missing citation routes to gap analysis automatically.

Integrations

Tracked across the AI engines your buyers are already using.

  • ChatGPT
  • Perplexity

Questions

Answers before you have to ask.

What counts as a citation versus a mention?

A mention is the AI answer naming the brand. A citation is the answer linking to a specific page on the brand’s site. Surgbly tracks both, separately.

How often are prompts checked?

Daily, on immutable prompt versions, so results are comparable week over week.

Why do results vary between runs?

AI answer engines are not deterministic. Surgbly runs each prompt multiple times and reports the variance instead of hiding it.

Which AI engines are covered?

The first validated provider set is ChatGPT and Perplexity. Additional providers are added only after their signal quality, cost, and repeatability are measured.

Find out who an AI engine actually cites.

Track your first prompt set and see the mention-vs-citation breakdown.